Many Americans and most public-school apologists argue that if we had no public schools and an unregulated education free-market, many poor families could not afford to educate their kids. We need public schools, they claim, to make sure poor kids get an education, however bad.
This excuse is directly related to the previous one. School authorities point out that at least in a public-school system, local governments force parents to send their children to school and pay for this schooling through taxes. This compulsory system insures that even children from the poorest families get an education, even if this education is mediocre to miserable. In contrast, they argue, a free-market system in which children do not have a right to an education, can’t guarantee even a minimum education to children from poor families.
As we noted above, it is true that the free market can’t guarantee a quality education for all children. However, let’s look at some poverty statistics that clarify this issue further. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the number of families living under the poverty line in the year 2002 was 7.2 million, or 9.6 percent of all American families.39 Census Bureau data for 2002 also indicate that 11,704,000 children under 18 years old, lived in families below the official poverty line.40
Let’s assume for the moment that a free-market education system could not find ways to give poor children a decent education (we will discuss ways that it can, very shortly). Under this assumption, about 11.7 million children living in poverty would not get educated (however we define educated). Now contrast this number with the fact that our public-school system, as we’ve seen, guarantees a third-rate education to the vast majority of public-school students (almost 45 million a year). Our public-schools also waste twelve years of children’s lives, warp their values, give millions of children mind-altering drugs, make kids hate learning, and cripple their ability to read.
Also, public schools already fail most inner-city children from low-income families. So how can school authorities claim we need public schools to ensure that poor children get a decent education? Would poor children be any worse off with a free-market education system than they already are in our public schools?
The answer is no, because in reality, a free-market system has a far greater chance of giving poor kids a quality education that public schools do. That’s because an education free-market is extremely flexible, and has many powerful ways to give poor parents real school choice that fits their budget. Before I discuss how an education free-market would do this, let me first clarify what I mean by this term.
An education free market would have no compulsory public schools — government would be out of the education business. As a result, there would be no compulsory attendance laws and no school taxes. All licensing laws would be scrapped. Anyone who wanted to teach any subject could do so without having to get a license. Also, anyone or any company who wanted to open a school could do so without having to get a license to operate. Parents would judge teachers or schools based on their reputation, competence, and real-world results. Parents would pay for their children’s education out of their own pockets, just as they now pay for their children’s food and clothing. However, they would only pay for their children’s education, not their neighbor’s, because school taxes would be gone.
The free market, together with the elimination of school taxes and regulations, can help the poorest parents educate their children in many ways:
First, state governments can use their lottery profits to pay for education scholarships for poor children. I consider state lotteries part of the free market because they are voluntary, as opposed to taxes, which are compulsory. If millions of people choose to gamble a few dollars on their state lottery every week, that is similar to their losing a few dollars a week playing the slot machines in a private casino.
In fiscal year 2003, 39 states grossed about $45 billion from their lotteries, and after payouts and expenses, had about $12 billion in net profits for education and other programs in their states.41 If we divided this $12 billion a year by the approximately 12 million children living under the poverty level that we discussed earlier, that comes out to about $1000 per child, per year. This $1000 a year scholarship could help poor parents pay part of the tuition for a Catholic or other private school.
But the potential benefits of lotteries can go way beyond this. There is no reason why state governments should have a legal monopoly on lotteries. If state gaming regulations that forbid private lotteries were scrapped, and big corporations then ran lotteries (far more efficiently), more billions of dollars could be raised for education. Local governments could induce private corporations to contribute part of their lottery profits to education scholarships by giving them tax credits for such contributions.
Today, state lottery money is dumped into failing public schools. This is a waste of precious money and resources, since the public-school system is beyond repair, no matter how much money it gets. Instead, once public schools were scrapped, every cent of state lottery profits could fund tuition scholarships for children from poor families.
Second, state and local governments can also offer tax credits to individuals or businesses that contribute to an education fund used for scholarships for poor kids. In 1997, Arizona passed a law that let taxpayers deduct up to $500 from their taxes for contributing the same amount to a “tuition organization” that gives education scholarships to kids from poor families. As of this writing, Arizona has thirty-one such scholarship organizations. In 1999, over 30,000 Arizona residents contributed almost $14 million to these scholarship clearinghouses, which helped almost 7,000 low-income students attend private schools. Many other states have created similar tax credit programs, including Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota, raising tens of millions of dollars in scholarship funds for poor children. 42
Third, private donors are another source of funding to help low-income children get a decent education. Americans are enormously compassionate. In 2001, they gave over $187 million to various charities in New York State alone.43 Many philanthropist-entrepreneurs have also created multimillion-dollar private scholarship programs for poor kids. One example I noted earlier is Theodore J. Forstmann’s $170 million Children’s Scholarship Fund that provides about 40,000 scholarships to poor kids.
Fourth, if we scrapped the public schools and eliminated all school taxes, every homeowner would get back thousands of dollars a year in tax refunds for school taxes they no longer had to pay. School tax refunds will help mostly middle-class families who own homes. However, everyone pays other state and local taxes that are used to support the public schools. If states lowered their general tax rates after they dismantled the public schools, everyone’s taxes would be less. Less state and local taxes would give low-income families extra money they could put aside for tutors or private-school tuition for their kids.
The greatest help for poor parents, however, would come from the free-market itself. If we no longer had public schools, the parents of 45 million school children would be shopping for education alternatives. This would create a huge, multi-billion dollar market for private teachers and schools. As a result, we would then see an explosion of new, low-cost, competitive schools created to meet this demand.
Every former public-school teacher could tutor children or open a small school in her home or a local, storefront space. Any adult with a special talent or knowledge could tutor neighborhood kids for a reasonable fee. Millions of retired people would teach for next to nothing just to be around children. Major corporations like Disney or Microsoft might enter the education business and create thousands of local schools throughout the country. Children could learn valuable skills and earn money in work-study programs with local businesses. Local entrepreneurs in minority areas could open low-cost neighborhood schools without having to worry about getting a license to operate. In Chapter 9, I will examine in depth other free-market education options, such as the new Internet schools, computer learning software, and home-schooling.
Cristo Rey Catholic School is one example of the many ways free-market schools can give poor kids a quality education. This school has created a study-work program in partnership with businesses to help cover tuition costs.
“Cristo Rey Jesuit High School is a Catholic School in Chicago, where 93 percent of the students come from low-income families. To give these poor kids a chance in life, the school developed a creative new way to finance their private education that other cities are now adopting. Student tuition at Cristo Rey is about $8500 a year, but the poor kids pay only about $2200. The students pay off the rest of the tuition by working five days each month, eight-hours a day, at participating banks, law firms, and other companies in Chicago. Each company pays about $25,000 a year in exchange for the clerical work done by four rotating students. This work-study-tuition program has paid off big for these kids; Currently, about 85 percent of the children in this program graduate and go to college. “
As noted earlier, for many years, the free market has been satisfying millions of parents’ need for quality private pre-schools, kindergartens, and colleges. When children are ready for college, parents have thousands of local or out-of-state colleges to chose from with a wide range of tuition costs. Many parents or high-school graduates take out college student loans and pay back the loans after they graduate. Parents could take out similar loans to pay for 1st through 12th grade education for their kids.
Fortunately, in an education free-market, parents would not have to pay tuition for twelve years of private school. Public schools have been around so long that most parents think that education requires going to a school for twelve years. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
In Chapter 1, I talked about John Taylor Gatto, New York City Teacher-of-the-Year in 1990. Mr. Gatto taught English and reading for twenty-six years in some of the worst public schools in New York City. Let me repeat here what Gatto wrote in his book, Dumbing Us Down, because it is worth repeating: “The truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about one hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn.” 45
One hundred hours is less than three months of public-school time for the average child. Even if we triple the time to three hundred hours for slow-learning or less enthusiastic kids, that’s still less than one year of school time to teach a child to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. This statistic is shocking if we remember that millions of public-school students take reading and English literature classes right into high school, yet still barely read at minimum levels by the time they graduate. If Gatto is right, parents would only have to send their children to a good free-market school (or pay a tutor) for a maximum of two years to become good readers and know basic arithmetic.
If most children could become proficient readers in two years, then why do they need public schools to waste twelve years of their lives? Most public-school education is a waste of time, anyhow. Whether kids learn history, science, or English literature, teachers tell kids to read the next chapter in a dumbed-down textbook, and then give them boring lectures and tests on that chapter. Very often, many children in the class have no interest whatsoever in the subject. Kids resent having to sit through these classes, so public-school “education” becomes a mind-numbing drudge.
Also, why should children waste their time studying trigonometry, biology, or foreign languages if these subjects bore them? Why should kids spend years studying a subject they will probably never use later in life, unless they really like the subject and will make it their college major? Why don’t we value our children’s time as much as we value our own?
Once children learned to read proficiently, if there were no compulsory attendance laws or required subjects to study, children could study whatever interests them, for as long as they like. Many parents might think I’m naïve to believe that children would read and study without being forced. That is because many kids who go to public school hate it. When children find a subject they’re interested in, they can be absorbed for hours on end. Kids love learning if you let them learn about something that fascinates them, and let them learn in their own way and at their own pace.
So parents would not have to send their children to school for eight to twelve years, as they do now. Most parents would only have to pay tuition to a quality free-market school for two years to make their children proficient readers. After learning to read well and do arithmetic, most kids could continue their education through self-study, tutors, Internet schools, computer learning software, home-schooling or other relatively inexpensive options.
Also, fierce competition would drive down tuition costs to levels that most parents, even the poorest, could afford. The free market would create so many new schools and options that we would have an education supermarket. Happily, most parents’ biggest worry would not be the cost of tuition. Their biggest worry would be trying to choose among the thousands of high-quality, low-cost tutors, local schools, computer software, and Internet schools competing for their business.
Most people who buy a car today finance the purchase with a car loan, paid off over four to five years. The average car today costs around $20,000. If children attended school in an education free market for only two to four years, parents could similarly pay off the tuition costs with a bank loan. If tuition costs were about $5000 a year, parents could take out a $15,000 to $20,000 education loan, and pay it out over five years. Sharply reducing the time children must spend in “formal” schooling greatly expands parents’ financial options to pay tuition costs.
These are only a few of the ways a free-market education system could help poor parents give their kids a quality, low-cost education. So school authorities’ excuse that we need public schools to ensure that poor children get an education, doesn’t hold water.
Tags: education, poor kids, public schools
